Australia’s hottest day? Not 2010, but 1828 at a blistering 53.9 °C
Back before man-made climate change was frying Australia, when CO2 was around 300ppm, the continent savoured an ideal preindustrial climate, right? (This is the kind of climate we are spending $10bn per annum to get back too?)
We are told today’s climate has more records and more extremes than times gone by, but the few records we have from the early 1800’s are eye-popping. Things were not just hotter, but so wildly hot it burst thermometers. The earliest temperature records we have show that Australia was a land of shocking heatwaves and droughts, except for when it was bitterly cold or raging in flood.
In other words, nothing has changed, except possibly things might not be quite so hot now.
Silliggy (Lance Pidgeon) has been researching records from early explorers and from newspapers. What he has uncovered is fascinating. — Jo
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Charles Sturt (1930 postage stamp) Wikimedia
Lance Pidgeon writes:
“EXTENSIVE FLOOD”, “AWFUL BUSH FIRES”, “PROLONGED DROUGHT“ AND “CHANGES OF CLIMATE“.
These Australian headlines from the 1800’s above describe extremes the early colonists faced. At the time the European explorers who were instructed and equipped to map the country and record the climate were frustrated by the only constant …change.
The heat was extreme – often hotter than 127F!
Like the other explorers Sturt was asked to record everything and in detail:
“You are likewise to note the nature of the climate, as to heat, cold, moisture, winds, rains, &c, and to keep a register of the temperature from Fahrenheit’s thermometer, as observed at two or three periods of each day.”
[From “Letter of Instructions” for his earlier expeditions from “His Excellency Lieutenant General Ralph Darling” Here]
Captain Charles Sturt as he inspects the equipment provided for the 1844-46 expedition into central Australia. Cartoon from Josh of Cartoons by Josh
The equipment provided was not always up to the task. On the equipment provided for one of his later expeditions he remarks:
“The thermometers sent from England, graduated to 127 degrees only, were too low for the temperature into which I went, and consequently useless at times, when the temperature in the shade exceeded that number of degrees” Charles Sturt. [From here].
He was able to acquire and take brewers thermometers. Which were used to measure the “in the sun” temperature and the ‘in the shade” temperatures that were too high for the precision ones. They were also used to estimate height above sea level from the boiling point of water.
Sturt offered his own analysis of some of the typical daily conditions from records in the colony at the time and his own observations.
The periodicity of the weather cycles did not escape his attention.
“The thermometer ranges during the summer months, that is, from September to March, from 36 degrees to 106 degrees of Fahrenheit, but the mean of the temperature during the above period is 70 degrees.”
In degrees C that range equates to a minimum of 2.2 , a max of 41.1 with a mean of 21.1.
This average seems close to the current average but the lower and upper temperatures were both more extreme than they are now!
“The most serious disadvantages under which the colony of New South Wales labours, is in the drought to which it is periodically subject. Its climate may be said to be too dry; in other respects it is one of the most delightful under heaven; and experience of the certainty of the recurrence of the trying seasons to which I allude, should teach men to provide against their effects. Those seasons, during which no rain falls, appear, from the observations of former writers, to occur every ten or twelve years; and it is somewhat singular that no cause has been assigned for such periodical visitations. Whether the state of the interior has anything to do with them, and whether the wet or dry condition of the marshes at all regulate the seasons, is a question upon which I will not venture to give my decisive opinion. But most assuredly, when the interior is dry, the seasons are dry, and VICE VERSA.” From here. Bold mine.
A map of Charles Sturts Route in South Eastern Australia Image: Wikimedia
Later and further out west all this was about to dramatically change. It was the end of the Dalton minimum and large changes in the climate were taking place Before we get to that. From his earlier expeditions:
Buddah Lake near Trangie N.S.W.
“We were sadly disappointed in the appearance of the lake, which the natives call the Buddah. It is a serpentine sheet of fresh water, of rather more than a mile in length, and from three to four hundred yards in breadth. Its depth was four fathoms; but it seemed as if it were now five or six feet below the ordinary level. No stream either runs into it or flows from it; yet it abounds in fish; from which circumstance I should imagine that it originally owed its supply to the river during some extensive inundation.”
“At 2 p.m. the thermometer stood at 129 degrees of Fahrenheit, in the shade; and at 149 degrees in the sun; the difference being exactly 20 degrees.” Bold mine.
For more info about the water levels at Buddah lake click here.
Sturt seems to have been at Buddah lake early to mid Dec 1828 and in case you missed that temperature: that’s 129 degrees or 53.9 °C.
His thermometer gave a temperature in the shade 0.8 degrees °C hotter than the recently attacked Australian record at Cloncurry QLD from the 16th Jan 1889. It is far hotter than the temperature recorded during the strongest solar cycle of last century, 50.7 degrees °C on the 2nd of January 1960 at Oodnadatta Airport S.A.
He was not alone in recording 129 degrees Sir Thomas Mitchell also recorded 129 F during another expedition at the Bogan river. In his words:
“The thermometer in my tent stood at 117°, and when exposed to the wind rose rapidly to 129°, when I feared the thermometer would break as it only reached to 132°.” 27th Dec 1845.
These texts can be found many places on the net like here and make great “adjustment-proof” reading.
Now before we get back to the temperatures from the dramatic imprisonment for months of Sturt years later by a heatwave that lasts for months:
“The thermometer was seldom under 114 degrees at noon, and rose still higher at 2 p.m. We had no dews at night, and consequently the range of the instrument was trifling in the twenty-four hours. Also from Here (Bold mine)
The cycles of droughts and floods
Expedition into Central Australia 1844 – 1846.
(Historical texts available many places on the net) Like… Here
Again right at the start of Sturt’s narrative in chapter one he notes how the Australian climate changes in a cyclic way through various extremes:
“severe and long continued droughts”…”sudden and terrific floods, which subside, as the cause which gave rise to them ceases to operate; the consequence is, that their springs become gradually weaker and weaker..”
Charles Sturt noticed and recorded many details of the effects of annual variations in the climate, longer cyclic and non cyclic changes as well as changes due to location and local climate. His Narratives are as are those of other explorers riddled with insights into what early Australian climate was like.
“The natives look to this periodical overflow of their river, with as much anxiety as did ever or now do the Egyptians, to the overflowing of the Nile.”
“No one could have watched the changes of the country through which he passed, with more attention than did I not only from a natural curiosity, but from an anxious desire to acquit myself to the satisfaction of the Government by which I was employed.”
“Proceeding down the Murray, I reached at length the commencement of the great fossil formation, through which that river flows. This immense bed rose gradually before me as I pushed to the westward, until it gained an elevation of from 2 to 250 feet,”
“When I reached the point at which Mr. Oxley had been checked, I found the Macquarie, not “running bank high,” as he describes it, but almost dry;”
Massive flooding
“Tenbury pointed out a line of rubbish and sticks, such as is left to mark the line of any inundation, and he told us, that, when he was a boy, he recollected the floods having risen so high in the valley as to wash the foot of these hills. He stated, that there had been no previous warning; that the weather was beautifully fine, and that no rain had fallen; and he added that the natives were ignorant whence the water came, but that it came from a long way off. According to Tenbury’s account, the river must have been fully five and twenty feet higher than it usually rises; and judging from his age, this occurrence might have taken place some twenty years before. As we proceed up the Darling, we shall see a clue to this phenomenon.” Bold mine.
Terrific heat
In many places (too numerous to quote) Sturt comments on how effects like reflection from the bright stony surface or wind may have altered the thermometer reading. I went for a little ride to check the area out in 1988.
Back to Sturt’s notes.
“At noon I took a thermometer, graduated to 127 degrees, out of my box, and observed that the mercury was up to 125 degrees. Thinking that it had been unduly influenced, I put it in the fork of a tree close to me, sheltered alike from the wind and the sun. In this position I went to examine it about an hour afterwards, when I found that the mercury had risen to the top of the instrument, and that its further expansion had burst the bulb, a circumstance that I believe no traveller has ever before had to record.” From here.
“The ground was thoroughly heated to the depth of three or four feet, and the tremendous heat that prevailed had parched vegetation and drawn moisture from everything. The mean of the thermometer for the months of December, January, and February, had been 101 degrees, 104 degrees, and 101 degrees respectively in the shade. Under its effects every screw in our boxes had been drawn, and the horn handles of our instruments, as well as our combs, were split into fine laminae. The lead dropped out of our pencils, our signal rockets were entirely spoiled; our hair, as well as the wool on the sheep, ceased to grow, and our nails had become as brittle as glass. The flour lost more than eight per cent of its original weight, and the other provisions in a still greater proportion. The bran in which our bacon had been packed, was perfectly saturated, and weighed almost as heavy as the meat; we were obliged to bury our wax candles; a bottle of citric acid in Mr. Browne’s box became fluid, and escaping, burnt a quantity of his linen; and we found it difficult to write or draw, so rapidly did the fluid dry in our pens and brushes. It was happy for us, therefore, that a cooler season set in, otherwise I do not think that many of us could much longer have survived. But, although it might be said that the intense heat of the summer had passed, there still were intervals of most oppressive weather.”
Bold temps above equate to: Dec. 38.3 °C, Jan 40 °C and Feb 38.3 °C.
Back to Sturt again.
Then it got hotter the following November! With both the >127 F exploding thermometer and the following.
“The heat was greater than that of the previous summer;
the thermometer ranging between 110 degrees and 123 degrees every day;
the wind blowing heavily from N.E. to E.S.E. filled the air with
impalpable red dust, giving the sun the most foreboding and lurid
appearance as we looked upon him. The ground was so heated that our
matches falling on it, ignited; and, having occasion to make a night
signal, I found the whole of our rockets had been rendered useless, as on
being lit they exploded at once without rising from the ground.” From here
“I therefore turned towards the ranges, and arriving at the upper water-hole at half-past two, determined to stop until the temperature should cool down in the afternoon before I proceeded along the line of hills to the N.E., for the day had been terrifically hot, and both ourselves and our horses were overpowered with extreme lassitude. At a quarter past 3, p.m. on the 21st of January, the thermometer had risen to 131 degrees in the shade, and to 154 degrees in the direct rays of the sun” Bold mine. From here.
“The night of the 6th”(JUNE)” was the coldest night we experienced at the Depot, when the thermometer descended to 24 degrees.”
That is minus 4.4 C. The coldest recorded nearby according to the BOM has been -2.5 at Tibooburra. So the range of the thermometer back then seems to have been greater.
“We reached our destination at 3 p.m., as we started early, and on looking at the thermometer fixed behind a tree about five feet from the ground, I found the mercury standing at 132 degrees; on removing it into the sun it rose to 157 degrees. Only on one occasion, when Mr. Browne and I were returning from the north, had the heat approached to this; nor did I think that either men or animals could have lived under it.” bold added.
The lack of floods in N.S.W was noticed by the locals at the time and comments were made about it being like this “Since white-man came in country”. See post from Jo Nova here. .
The temperatures recorded by the explorers were for official government and nation building purposes. The explorers possibly had some fear of not being believed or even being accused of exaggeration. This could explain why the early reports of Sturt’s travels in the newspapers of the time carried even higher temperatures.
“It may give His Excellency some idea of the heat to which we were exposed, when I assure you that I found the thermometer which I had lefl with Joseph, and which was fixed in the shade of a large tree, four feet from the ground, stationary 135 ° of Fahrenheit at half-past two p.m., and that in the direct rays of the sun it rose to 157 °. It had, on a former occasion, when Mr, Browne was with me, Stood at 132 ° in the shade, and 153 ° in the sun.”
The Courier (Hobart, Tas.) Saturday 11 October 1845
That is 57.2°C, four feet from the ground and in the shade!
The same accuracy may not be expected from an even earlier report of 135 F from South Australia in 1937 here, here and here. The writers at the time must have thought them believable.
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Images: 1930 postage stamp | Sturt Map | Rest thanks to Lance Pidgeon.
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While I like all students of my vintage learnt of Sturts expeditions in social studies, (is that showing my age, do they still have sicial studies). I can’t remember either our text or our teachers saying anything about those oppressive temperatures.
If people of my vintage didn’t learn of the temperatures Sturt had to endure, students of later eras most certainly havent, therfore it is obvious why these present day students are so easily convinced of the evil climate change, global warming.
Well done Lance, (Silliggy)
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My kids did not learn who Charles Sturt was at all. The teachers did manage to get my daughter worried about the CO2 from her soft drink.
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When did education cease, and political programing replace it?
How did so many subverters rise to positions of power in so many fields? were we all asleep or did we just not care.
I grew up petrified of a nuclear holocaust, was I just as gullible?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5UdeGB2_FNs
sorry if the link has already been posted.
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25-30 years ago at a guess.
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I studied Meteorology from 1967 and it was common knowledge that the 1930’s were the warmest years here and in the U.S. and Marble Bar had the World record heat wave in 1923-1924.
We have also lived within the climate extremes of the last two centuries.
The last two wet Winters in Australia is just a return of the Winter climate from decades ago, it’s nothing new and no cause for alarm.
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and, on the basis of this CAGW scam, we are self-destructing:
14 July: UK Daily Mail: Tamara Cohen: Soaring green energy taxes could force firms out of UK as industry becomes uncompetitive…
Industry will become increasingly uncompetitive due to soaring green energy taxes, according to the Government’s own advisers.
A shocking report has found UK manufacturers’ electricity bills are already significantly higher than those in other leading nations due to climate change levies.
By the end of the decade, our green taxes will be double those in other EU nations and dozens of times higher than those in the US…
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) report looked at the iron and steel, aluminium, cement and chemicals industries in 11 countries, most of which have renewable energy policies.
These energy-intensive industries directly employ 600,000 in Britain and contribute nearly £50billion a year to the economy.
Firms will be forced to pay an extra £28.30 in green taxes on top of the market price they pay for every megawatt hour of electricity by 2020 due to climate policies, according to the report by an independent firm.
This compares with £15.70 in Denmark, renowned for its renewable energy drive, £15.20 in France, £17.30 in Germany, £10 in China and a fall in the US and Russia…
The report was also scathing about the proposed Carbon Price Floor, which from next year will tax firms £16 per ton of carbon they emit.
It has been criticised by environmental groups for simply encouraging firms to shift production to countries without such strict rules…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2173414/Soaring-green-energy-taxes-force-firms-UK-industry-uncompetitive.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
green green California:
(2 pages) 15 July: LA Times: Bankruptcy choices highlight fiscal pain of cities nationwide
by Ken Bensinger, Kim Christensen and Jessica Garrison
What’s clear is that the fiscal pain experienced by U.S. cities is widespread and shows no sign of easing.
“It does not look pretty. It’s not going to look pretty over the next three or four years,” said Michael Pagano, dean of the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “It’s a long-term structural problem, and cities need to think of new ways to collect resources to fuel their services, or they are only going to be in worse trouble.”…
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-bankrupt-cities-20120715,0,4490983.story
*** so let’s have insane derivatives based on CO2!
12 July: Bloomberg: Josh Barro: Another California Bankruptcy, Away From the Coast
Sometimes, municipalities end up in bankruptcy for idiosyncratic reasons:
***Orange County made bizarre investments in derivatives that turned bad; Mammoth Lakes lost a devastating court case for breach of contract. Usually, however, a city goes bankrupt because two things happen together: It makes policy mistakes, and then it gets hit with unexpectedly bad economic conditions…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-11/another-california-bankruptcy-away-from-the-coast.html
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Scientific Anecdote
When I was a kid in the fifties we used to have summers regularly with temperatures of over 100 deg F in the range 102 to 105 for over a week.
In the late seventies when our children were young we also had sweltering unpleasant heatwaves that don’t seem to be the current experience.
Nothing in the last twenty years has approached that.
Our experience of the Earth is that it is not getting hotter.
KK 🙂
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Obviously your temperature calibration is not working correctly. Report to a readjustment facility immediately for reprogramming.
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Droughts and flooding rains, snow and sleet, searing summers, shipwrecking seas, cyclones, earthquakes, we’ve had all of it in our little quarter acre that we have called home for the past 35 years. Is it climate? Is it weather?
The cats seem to think it’s climate of the cooling variety, as they began eating harder and packing on weight before Easter this year. They don’t go outdoors until the middle of the day, and come back indoors early in the afternoon. Unusual behaviour for them.
We don’t have much birdlife in the garden at present. Even the Indian mynah birds are absent. The birds are a fair indication of an inhospitable situation.
The resident ringtail possum family has gone into hibernation somewhere that isn’t in our garage roof space.
And the fish aren’t biting. That’s a really bad sign. Plus, my chilli seeds refuse to germinate.
Climate change can be such a bust for flora and fauna, and for we who have to live under the carbon dioxide tax in a cold winter.
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🙂
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Hey bro, one of the real best indicators are watch any or all the ‘ants’ they are the best of natures warning signs of rain ! pre-rain = All out searching/collecting food + building nest or moving to high ground.
rain= dis-appear out of sight ,and take cover out of harms way.
After rain= ya notice a few ants that seem to sense weather more to come ! If they head straight back ya have more coming in !!!
Ya been forewarned for knowing when/what and how to tell when ya got it cuming near ya..
Enjoy, and have a few bets with ya mates next time ya partying “)…
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I remember droughts and Murray floods from the 1950s in SA. In 1960 and 61 we took public exams in the Wayville Showgrounds exhibition hall in Nov/Dec. Hit 112 F during one exam.
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I am waiting for the “When was the last time the murray flooded” story held up as proof of AGW, of ocurse there will be no mention of the various locks and barrages that have been put in place over the years for the purpose of flood mitigation.
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Good post by Pat Michaels at WUWT covering historical record temps for the USA.
Seems that todays heatwaves are not that extraordinary at all.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/14/newly-found-weather-records-show-1930s-as-being-far-worse-than-the-present-for-extreme-weather/#more-67475
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I read that and it made me think of of John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath”. Wouldn’t the green lobby love to have hoards of destitute “Okies” on the road now, climate refugees as it were.
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“…adjustment-proof”?
Not where the Warmists are concerned. Facts and truth are not held in high regard by these people. Where truth opposes their beliefs, truth has to back down.
Let’s see — old-style thermometers tending to over-read? Non-scientists making measurement errors? Non-peer-reviewed travel logs? Seeking more funding for further research from Big Governor?
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Wasn’t there a mention of using brewer’s thermometers?
Does anyone in there right mind think that a brewer’s thermometer wouldn’t be very, very carefully calibrated !!! 😉
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Examining this sort of weather history, rather than getting one’s self in knots about the science, highlights the most damning evidence against the claim that the “climate” is “changing” in unique ways.
It is not restricted to Australia either. If you see an alarmist claim that ACC is happening in say certain parts of Africa a little googling will soon reveal that the location said to be experiencing unprecedented “climate change” is experiencing weather events that have periodically occurred decades, centuries and even millennia ago (by evidence from past geological records).
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This O/T about an article by Tristan Edis to which I responded.
The article entitled “Fielding, Pell and climate education” seems to want to demonstrate the difficulty that ordinary taxpayers might have at understanding the Man Made Climate Change argument.
It does this in two ways. Firstly it sets out to convince laypeople that the people listed in the title are unable and unqualified to
assess the truth or otherwise about the claims of carbon dioxide induced warming.
By extension is automatically disbars that lay enquirer from any possibility that they may be able to assess the truth.
The final analysis points to the one and only recommended source of Climate Truth; the nominated Climate Scientist.
Enquirers should be encouraged to ask why, if Climate Science is so accurate and incontestable, that they are so heavily discouraged from
seeking a second opinion on the “science” involved.
In the real world, outside of the Climate Change community, it is almost impossible to get a highly qualified scientist to agree with the so called science of Climate Change.
Mainstream scientists view Climate Science as laughable, politically inspired rhetoric that uses constant media exposure to hold public acceptance.
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The article is typical of the low level scientific comment designed to reinforce the idea that ONLY climate scientists – the High Priests of AGW – are qualified to interpret these grave mysteries. It is poor journalism but its effect is disturbing given it achieves its goal of confusing people rather than correctly informing them.
KK
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“The final analysis points to the one and only recommended source of Climate Truth; the nominated Climate Scientist.”
It should be very clear who to blame for each and every failed prediction then.
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Yes Siligy
And eventually we must lay blame and stop this madness.
Royal commission, but even there we are not safe from the warmer $$ influence and power.
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Thanks Jo for this snap shot of history. I find it fascinating when reading the historical records of the past.
O/T. For readers of this thread, i figured you might like to know what goes on in far flung places on the internet.
The Carbon Debate, pt III
http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/the-carbon-debate-pt-iii.915045/
Check it out if you have time to spare, otherwise ignore it.
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Friends please excuse my indulgence.
Simon at Australian Climate Madeness is pursuing David Karoly, (an IPCC review erditor for the AR5 and a WWF activist) with an FOI request regarding the infamous death threats and needs our financial help (small amounts will do).
If you are willing and able, please donate at the left side-bar HERE
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“We are told today’s climate has more records and more extremes than times gone by”. Statistically, this is much more difficult to prove than uptrending means. This is the last AGW stronghold and here the hoax should be smoked out completely. But let’s do it in an elegant way (anecdotes just are not enough).
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The temperature recordings on the Sturt’s (or other’s) explorations could hardly be called “anecdotal”..
These explorations parties had surveyors, botanists, doctors etc along on the trip, so there is no reason to believe that the measurements would be anything but accurate for the time.
You only have to look at maps created of the time, to know just how finnicky and fastitious these early explorers were.
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Agree Any. What I mean is that if we can make global time series of means we can also make global time series of variances. It can be done with the same programs. However, variances have larger error bars making it more difficult to decide whether these increase. All that talk about extremes is talk about variances. Recently we have had the USA heat waves and a complete AGW circus around it. It is an example of anecdotal mist AGW needs. At many universities the variance series can be constructed for a few dollars. We should insist that this happens. If I were in charge at UEA, I would commission Phil Jones to do it.
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The temperatures within a Stevenson screen can be higher than those of temperatures measured in the shade as the screen is a barrier to convection. OTOH, the temperatures could read higher because of reflected energy directly onto the thermometer.
One has to accept that the temperatures were measured differently and that they are equally valid if one takes into account the way in which they were measured.
The measurement methods aren’t directly comparable. Nor can the historic ones be “adjusted” to be “equivalent”. The errors from assumptions in “blind homogenizing” of the data are uncontrollable. Only if the observers carefully documented everything relevant to every temperature reading (e.g. location characteristics, wind direction and speed) then one can conduct physical experiments as to the plausible correction that could be applied to that single reading.
Which of course is too much like real work and actual science for the great homogenizers of temperature data.
01
Ed Thurstan pointed out that spiders in the stevenson screen box can slow the air even more and that dirt on the bottom of the box can absorb more heat reflected up from the ground. Anthony Watts has shown that the paint type alters the temperature and I notice old ones have different legs. How much evaporative cooling occurs on four wet wooden legs with two diagonal supports all wicking moisture up from the ground? Surely this cools the past compared to the modern steel pole conducting it’s solar warmth and the warmth from the mass of concrete at it’s base in to combat the high specific heat of wood? Charles Sturts methods may have cooled the thermometer via contact with the tree but at least he gives an “in the sun” measurement so that it can be seen that the “in the shade ” measurement was cooler and by how much.
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The worst Australian weather judging by reliable description combined with quality readings – and taking into account location – would be the summer of 1791 and 1792 in Sydney and at Rose Hill. I have twice experienced the combination of north westerlies and high summer heat (early 90s and around 2000), and this mix is far more lethal than the simple high-temp heatwaves I remember from 2004 and 1960.
Tench’s journal – edited by Tim Flannery! – describes what I regard as terrifying summer conditions, not matched by anything in my lifetime.
Another slice of the past our Green Betters will have to fudge or abolish. (I keep forgetting…we’re at war with Eurasia now? Or is it Eastasia?)
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Whoops. Referring to NW winds + high summer heat, I said early 90s when I meant to type early 80s. The phenomenon is mercifully rare and not to be forgotten.
I see where the recent big heat in DC is supposed to be due to global you-know-what. History, however, is a pesky old thing:
http://www.wjla.com/blogs/weather/2012/07/100s-in-the-30s-think-last-week-was-hot–16120.html
Before our Green Betters fashion the New Man, they’ll need to institute a Year Zero. History is too untidy and confusing.
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I have noticed many references to “the hot wind” or “a hot wind blew” even “the Australian Sirroco”. These did seem to occur more in the past and have me interested too!
Charles Darwin recorded one in his dairy(Bathurst at 119 degrees F in 1836).
The “Sirroco” is referred to without introduction or explanation in some old papers making it obvious that Joe average knew what it meant.
Another hot wind event was recorded at Gov’t house Parramatta in 1803. It also got to 119F!
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Sirocco
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Guys … please, do me a favour and test those thumbs up. (Reload this page, F5 then click, click clicccccck). I’m excited. 🙂 It’s working for me. Does it work for you?
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Have just upvoted a comment… and I didn’t even have to use secret programmers’ tricks to do it!
Thumbs would indeed appear to be waggling again.
I never knew I had a greenthumb until I tried. 😉
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NEWSFLASH: THUMBS UP ARE GO!
Finally — after weeks of being thwarted — struck voiceless by a mystery bug, key surgery on intricate code has defeated the gremlin that silenced your thumb.
Thank Andrew-codeman-McRae everyone! He’s the coding genius who figured out and fixed the template from afar. A php star! Everyone give that man a thumbs up 😀 I’m a happy woman!
Rejoice! A tiny bit of entropy has been defeated!
—Jo
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…and I’ve never been adversely affected by Kryptonite exposure either! 😉
Thank you for your kind words, Jo.
It reminds me of an old joke….
—-8<——-8<——-8<——-8<——-8<——-8<—
There was an engineer who had an exceptional gift for fixing all things mechanical. After serving his company loyally for over 30 years, he happily retired. Several years later the company contacted him regarding a seemingly impossible problem they were having with one of their multimillion dollar machines. They had tried everything and everyone else to get the machine to work but to no avail. In desperation, they called on the retired engineer who had solved so many of their problems in the past. The engineer reluctantly took the challenge. He spent a day studying the huge machine. At the end of the day, he marked a small “x” in chalk on a particular component of the machine and stated, “This is where your problem is”. The part was replaced and the machine worked perfectly again. The company received a bill for $50,000 from the engineer for his service. They demanded an itemized accounting of his charges. The engineer responded briefly:
One chalk mark…………… $1
Knowing where to put it … $49,999
It was paid in full and the engineer retired again in peace.
—-8<——-8<——-8<——-8<——-8<——-8<—
That's funny to me because fixing the thumbs took… can you keep a secret… one line of code… but it had to be the right line in the right place.
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You aught to phone Trenberth, to see if he wants help finding his missing heat in the models. $50,000 should be reasonable as a daily rate.
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Hi JO
Thanks for all the effort on this site.
When the 403 took it off air recently, I was concerned.
The blog has been the only way I had of getting at the truth behind Government Decisions on Climate Change.
If that was taken away by the Government they could do anything.
But to business.
The thumbs don’t work in Firefox but are all up and running in Internet Explorer.
Many of the icons are showing as blanks as well on Firefox.
Maybe I should wipe Firefox and try a new copy.
Regards
KK.
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running ff 13.0.1 have no problems.
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The thumbs on comments where I already voted turn gray and don’t allow a repeat vote, which I would think should be normal operation.
10
Deleted Firefox – it was a bit messed up – and downloaded new copy.
All OK and running purrfectly – Thanks
KK
00
Thanks Richard
10
Delete the obove comment
Tested the new Firefox download. Was actually on the IE page..
Firefox is NOT working for either votes or icons.
ARRRRGGGHH
Alzheimers ???
00
I am on Safari. As soon as I see your rogue firefox, I’ll give the blighter both barrels.
10
Firefox is working for me KK.
Thanks to all the programming team behind the scenes (and to Jo too, of course) for their untiring efforts in getting the thumbs to wave again!
00
After several attempts to delete and install, finally tried deleting all old history and junk associated with FF.
It is now running purrrrfectly with opposable digits and full technicolour icons.
Thanks to those who let me know it could be done.
🙂
00
Works for me.
Good job!
00
“Climate could kill you, Outback towns are told”
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/climate-could-kill-you-outback-towns-are-told-7939597.html
“Climate change could transform the Australian outback, wiping dozens of small towns off the map, according to a new report commissioned by the federal government.”
Might want to send a copy of Captain Charles Sturts book to those responsible for this report.
01
Nah mate. We’ll just open a few more tinnies, she’ll be right.
00
Climate won’t kill outback towns, but Government decisions like the ban on live exports without any consultation or warning can cause as much damage as banning irrigation in farming areas.
00
This post is about science, but more importantly, the history of it. There is a problem with people who’ve had an education in the sciences; they think humanities, art and history are irrelevant to whatever they’re working on. The reverse applies to people studying the humanities; they think science is irrelevant to their field of endeavour.
So many of the truly creative brains in both areas of endeavour, tend to start dabbling in the black arts of the other side of the fence near the end of their life. True skeptics.
Pointman
00
Well put, Pointman.
And very profound. How many disciplines today (apart from military officer training) includes subjects on the history of the speciality? Not many, I would wager.
Irrelevant? I don’t think so. The present only exists because of events that occurred in the past, and if you don’t understand why those events occurred, you can’t even understand the present, let alone predict the future.
[Sorry – light bulb moment.]
10
Good comment Pointman.
In the words of that old song: “you can’t have one without the other.”
KK 🙂
00
Engineers are, not infrequently, required to deal with both physical and social sciences: Hard vs Squishy aspects of making things work in the real world, because people are an important component of how stuff works.
One can’t be a good Engineer without an appreciation of human factors. Artifacts that are built and systems constructed to satisfy human needs and desires. One has to understand those motivations in order to properly fulfill.
The biggest Engineering failure (in my view) over the past 50 years or so has been a failure to educate the wider public as to what is entailed in providing them with the facilities, tools and toys that they enjoy every day. Education by Engineers has been reactive, answering questions from the few who are curious. Proactive education, via influence of e.g. educational curricula and engaging with the entertainment industry has been spotty at best. Through that failure, all the technology is becoming more and more indistinguishable from magic. Things are accepted without consideration or understanding of how they work and how they got to be.
A lack of appreciation of what’s inside the box and what it took to make the box leads to a muddled perception of reality: A science-fiction fantasy where objects simply appear on the shelves of shops, in the sales yards of car dealers, and roads and bridges are built; all without digging up any raw materials or producing and using energy in their manufacture.
00
Bernd, I think the real problem is social engineering and the degrading of engineering achievements.
The Romans had engineers who built roads, bridges, supplied water with aqueducts, made cement & lime, soap, leather, cloth; smelted iron, copper, tin silver & gold etc then lost it with theaters & circuses (humans being eaten by lions). Napoleon set up engineering schools which produced many good engineers in the early 19th century (eg Eiffel). A few decades ago I K Brunel (bridge, & ship builder) was consider more important in England than Shakespeare. In the late 19th century Germany had great engineers such as Diesel, Otto, Siemens. At the turn of the century into the 1930’s Australia had great engineers in minerals processing (including Monash was a driving force for development of the Latrobe Valley brown coal. The space race brought a lot of engineering products computers and communications.
Now the environmentalists want to turn back the clock and deny people in developing countries some improvement in their lives which comes from engineering technology.
00
Bernd, this:
Rings true with me after spending several days working on my vintage Jaguar XJ-S. The Jag engineers were definitely heavy on the hard and light on the squishy! They must never have had to actually repair the damned things…….The formidable V12 wrapped up tightly in a pile of bent paperclips, tin cans and piano wire.
Gawed how I hate to love it……………
00
Engineers should at all times be supervised by an experienced tradesman unless they are one.
10
Hi Siliggy
Does that also imply that an “experienced” engineer doesn’t need supervision by a tradesman?
🙂
00
I studied electronic engineering in the days of valves … in the days when you could see how the circuit worked.
I really miss Vff.
00
Sliggy,
This is very true, when in the RAAF we would not let the engineers (officers) anywhere near the equipment. I remember one use to carry a small screwdriver and based on the guidence of a book he had about radars thought he could tweak ours. We ended up taking it off him and grinding the end off it before we gave it back.
Rereke,
I was lucky enough to get a bit of valve training (a hang over from the past) and the only problem was there size. However a few years ago a Russian pilot defected to the west in his Mig, upon inspection the west (read yanks) found the aircraft to be full of miniture valve technology and oh how they laughed…………….then someone pointed out that during a nuclear blast the EMP will take down all the planes in the sky except this one.
Suddenly we realised we were 20 years behind in this technology, funny how things work isnt it.
00
Electronic valves?!?!?!?!?
That isn’t old technology it’s cutting edge! No more camshafts, timing gears or distributors.
Tubes? is that what you mean.
Yes I know 🙂
PS, I’d like to see an Iphone running on valves! I think the battery would have to be pretty large and holding the phone to your ear might require assistance.
**********
Lance,
Good plan, also a merit system based on repairer feedback.
In the case of Jaguar, I’m pretty sure I was capable of manslaughter had a Jag engineer been present in my garage on Saturday.
00
Yes of course we all meant “tubes”, the advantage of tubes is that they can handle high power applications unlike the TTL or CMOS transistor so i doubt there would be a need to use them in Iphones.
Jag hey……….British design or one of the Chinese (read Ford) knock off versions?
00
KK asks: “Does that also imply that an “experienced” engineer doesn’t need supervision by a tradesman?”
Experience will wash away so many sins that a hobbiest/enthusisast can often outperform all contenders.
00
Definitely British Leyland (early 80’s vintage). Complete with Lucas (the Prince of Darkness) and Bosch electrics. Hard to believe that when new it cost new more than my first house.
I’m convinced that at least one Jag engineer was a watch maker struggling with size issues and if they even had an electrical engineer, he knew nothing of Ohm’s law. Also, I’m convinced that Jaguar had controlling (financial) interest in both gasket (packing) manufacturers and the makers of funny (oddball) threaded fasteners. This at least would explain the constant failings of both.
Of course all my whinging stops when she starts up and relative to CAGW, the 12 miles per gallon of petrol causes a wide grin (even wider when you push it to 10MPG). Fortunately we don’t have a carbon tax yet so premium is about $4/gallon.
(mods: sorry this is drifting off topic)
00
One of the simplest and most effective graphs on temperatures I have ever seen was posted on this site by Jo a while back. It showed the temps for the current interglacial. The holocene optimum occurred during the bronze age and it has been down hill for temps ever since. No SUVs, no industrial pollution and no factor to explain why temps were 5 degrees warmer then than they are now and the Bronze age had a lot less CO2 in the atmosphere.
But hey, we are putting less than 12 molecules of CO2 in the atmosphere per 1,000,000 parts so… what? 😉
00
Yep, according to that temp reconstruct, we are nowhere near the Holocene optimum.. That must have been really nice climate on the coast.. warm winters instead of freezing our butts off.. But I bet inland Australia wasn’t too pleasant during the summer.
00
The cooling must be due to soldiers having to polish their shiny brass, Eddy. 😉
00
So Who Is Adam Smith?
I note Adam Smith claimed to have a doctorate, not a big deal in itself, after all, Michael Mann has one too as does Tim Flannery, but I did begin to wonder what area it may be in.
While Jo Nova’s blogsite was down I decided to Google Dr Adam Smith’s in Australia. I know this off topic subject will appeal to Adam Smith because he studiously avoids offering any actual science to support his position. But others may like to contribute to guesses too.
A good candidate was Dr Adam Smith who was the winner of the 2008 Certified Environmental Practitioner (CEnvP) of the Year. “His award was conferred by the Honourable Peter Garrett, MP at the annual Gala Dinner of the Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand (EIANZ) on 31 October.” This Adam Smith is the Manager of Environmental Impact Management for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. As a public servant he’d have plenty of time on his hands to spend aimlessly on Jo Nova’s blog site, and he’d be keen to keep the CAGW gravy train going.
Or almost at opposite ends of the spectrum could he be the Dr Adam Smith, the National Chair of the Australian Underwater Federation National Spear fishing Commission in Australia? Who knew there even was one?
Another option could be Dr. Adam T. Smith a gynaecologist, though I’m not sure whether he is located in WA (Western Australia), or WA (Washington).
Come on Adam, tell us – oh and see if you can address any of those matters you’ve studiously avoided.
[you’re assuming Adam Smith is his name. You know what happens when one assumes. mod oggi]
00
To misquote Spike Milligan, “Adam Smith’s comments are not written by Adam Smith, but another man with the same name”.
00
Now you know why the Carbon Tax cannot be repealed because, if I may paraphrase Minister Garrett,
Nothing’s as precious as a hole in the budget!
00
Mod Oggi – I was just playing. The name Adam Smith is just a little less obvious than John Smith! But it doesn’t matter because as usual, there are no answers forthcoming. For all I know it could be how Peter Slipper has chosen to use all that spare time he has on his hands now.
00
Great work Lance.
These are symptoms which can be tested today.
I have an old encyclopedia which also makes reference to Sturt’s expedition and the above occurrences and it mentions a temperature of 130 degrees in the shade.
Anyone in Adelaide can visit Sturt’s Cottage at Grange which has been restored. The curator told me the bed there is a replica and not the original, which was stolen from the Port Adelaide wharf in 1964 after being shipped from England.
If it was so hot in Australia then, while the Northern Hemisphere was still coming out of the Little Ice Age, imagine how it must have been during the Medieval Warm Period!
00
Thanks Ian. You have hooked me in. Saving for that Adelaide holiday now.
00
Well there’s plenty of places to see. I’m sure you’ll find West Terrace of interest too! Well not so much the road, but the historical site of Adelaide’s main weather station for most of the 20th century. Also the State Library and all its newspapers. Let me know when you’re coming over.
00
I imagine it would have been comparatively cool down under.
Notice this comment in the post..
Cooler minimums, warmer maximums.
If the northern hemisphere is cold (little ice age) then the air is more dense. If the air is more dense in the northern hemisphere, it has to be less dense in the southern hemisphere. This would cause lower minimums and higher maximums in the southern hemisphere.
Suddenly, Stephan the Denier doesn’t seem so crazy ha?
00
Baa, I never thought Stephan the Denier was crazy, just unable to communicate effectively.
It is hard to use English if it is a second or subsequent language because the constructs have no logic or flow to them compared to other languages.
00
“and it mentions a temperature of 130 degrees in the shade.
being so long ago, I’m betting BOM, CUD, GUSH etc would “adjust” that down to about 80 deg F 😉
00
Well done Lance and Jo. You’ve spent a lot of time sleuthing this. We learnt about Sturt’s pencils falling apart in school back in the 50s and 60s but Sturt’s not in the curriculum anymore. Meanwhile here in sunny Queensland we’ve had the coldest June, warmest July, wettest July for many many years. Australians have to remember that extremes are normal.
O/T The local sugar refinery (Racecourse) has shut down for a few days partly as a result of the Carbon Tax, because due to the wet weather, the mills can’t supply bagasse (cane fibre residue) for fuel. The refinery would normally switch to coal, but that would incur the Carbon Tax, so it’s cheaper to shut down. It’s started already.
Ken
00
And when the news that the sugar refinery has shut down finds its way onto the commercial radio network, just watch the panic buying. The fact that it is temporary will be totally lost in the panic.
00
And well done to you Ken, and Chris, Ian, Ed, Sherro and the rest of the crew.
00
Yes a very modest bunch of exceptionally helpful and dedicated truth seekers who spend time and money checking out a lot more than ever gets to be written about. I must have driven them near batty with this stuff and cost them and Warwwick Hughes money as several books on Sturt were purchased by people who were checking along with me.
Thankyou Jo for sorting out my dodgy writing and coping with it being far far too long and complicated.
00
From the ABC :
So it was actually the cost of the coal, not the Carbon Tax that was the problem.
00
What else would the ABC say? 🙂
00
It was actually Mackay Sugar CEO Quenton Hildebrand who said it, not the ABC.
Lay off the Kava, Dave.
Cheers!!!
00
What does he mean by “Those obviously attract income”.
Oh and whose words are these again.
“The cost of coal has…”
00
Try this below for size Bungalow. As invariably seems to be the case warmists, like yourself, favour suitably redacted reports as well as manipulated temperature data.
DAILY MERCURY
Refinery coal too costly
16th July 2012 5:00 AM
MACKAY’S Racecourse Mill sugar refinery has been temporarily closed and the carbon tax is copping the blame.
Around 25 truck drivers from Zarb Road Transport were temporarily laid off on Friday after they were told the refinery would cease production.
Truck driver Ian Kenny said he was shocked to learn the news.
“I wasn’t really expecting it,” Mr Kenny said. “I’m a permanent with Zarb Road Transport, but it affects a lot of their seasonal drivers.
“They’re just normal family blokes, most of them in their late 30s to mid 50s… (they’ve) all got to pay rent.”
The refinery is ordinarily run using bagasse to fuel the boilers to produce steam and electricity. However, Racecourse Mill has stopped crushing cane due to the wet weather and bagasse is no longer being produced.
In the past, coal has been used to keep the refinery operating but since the introduction of the carbon tax, refinery owners Sugar Australia (a joint venture between Mackay Sugar and Sucrogen) have deemed it uneconomical to continue production.
Mackay Sugar chief executive officer Quinton Hildebrand said while not the main culprit, the tax was a factor behind the decision not to burn coal to keep refining.
“The decision to shut the refinery for a short period of time makes commercial sense as Mackay Sugar and Sugar Australia can save cost whilst still meeting the sugar demand,” Mr Hildebrand said. “The carbon tax is a contributing cost factor though not the main determinant in this decision.”
Mackay Sugar is on the list of carbon producing companies forced to pay the tax.
Mr Kenny said compensation offered by the government as part of the carbon tax was a joke when workers could spend weeks without an income.
“I’ve been living here for 12 years and they’ve never shut down because it was too expensive to run the refinery.”
http://www.dailymercury.com.au/story/2012/07/16/refinery-coal-too-costly-carbon-tax/
00
No need to have a go at me you clown: and what has temperature data got to do with it?
Maybe you should take the matter up with the CEO Quenton Hildebrand, though I note in your post you state :
“……Mr Hildebrand said. The carbon tax is a contributing cost factor though not the main determinant in this decision.”
I think that is clear enough. Or are you incapable of understanding a simple statement?
00
You don’t seem to be the brightest button on the block Bungalow. This happens to be a thread on temperature data so if you come the raw prawn expect to get some advice on the variety of issues that clouds your perception of “climate change” and the negative effect of warmist policies on the lives of ordinary Aussies.
If the plant was using its own waste product as a fuel one would have to be called Bungalow not to know that coal would cost more. That is not the issue. The carbon tax is stated as a contributing cost factor. Contributing means to “help to cause”. Do you have access to an English dictionary?
Explicitly in Hildebrands words:
“Mackay Sugar chief executive officer Quinton Hildebrand said while not the main culprit, the tax was a factor behind the decision not to burn coal to keep refining.”
There is no doubt. that the imposition of the carbon tax was a factor in closing this plant down for a short time and causing a loss of wages. Wiping out in one hit, so it seems, Gillard’s compensation for increased energy charges for those workers affected.
Some of us who are involved in running businesses affected by the carbon tax are fully aware of the compounding effect of that tax on a range of inputs and how much it will cost.
Though not explicitly stated one can only wonder if this processing plant is closing down for a period of time to get its carbon emissions below the target at which it becoms a “major polluter” and thus subject to a heavy monetary penalty.
To get you up to speed Bungalow here is a company I’m familiar with that is thinking of this tactic:
The Sunday Mail (Qld)
June 24, 2012 12:00AM
A MAJOR meatworks could shut one of its Queensland plants for three weeks to side-step a carbon tax bill expected to cost millions.
Teys Australia Meat Group is one of 295 names on a preliminary list of companies to be slugged the $23 a tonne carbon tax from July 1 after its carbon emissions were estimated as being above the threshold of 25,000 tonnes a year.
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/meatworks-may-shut-to-avoid-carbon-tax/story-e6freon6-1226406402891
00
You should tell Ken Stewart, he raised the Carbon tax issue, not me.
You also missed this :
Now read it again, just so it sinks in.
And read this, it should really annoy you. http://www.mackaysugar.com.au/business/green-projects/Pages/Green-Projects.aspx
As for clouded perception, you lot seem to be the ones stuck in a permanent London fog.
I’ve seen some of your advice on this blog, and it comes as no surprise no one takes you seriously. In fact I’d say that you qualify for membership to that elite group who’s IQ is less than your average golf handicap.
Cheers!
01
.
Isn’t the inability of obtaining CO2 Tax credits because of no bagasse supply simply a double CO2 Tax hit:
1. CO2 Tax charged if coal is used?
2. CO2 Tax credits (REC’s) not given when coal is burnt!
It’s maths – they should simply buy in baggasse through other supplies!
00
Well, well, well look what we have here, the whole point of the carbon tax was to make companies less emitting and if they cant then they will be forced to shut down………..that was the point of the tax.
So here we have a classic example of a company having to shut down (albeit for a short time) because of the cost of coal (cost inflated by addition of carbon tax).
We have people like BB pre July 1 singing the virtues of this tax and now post July 1 claiming the tax is not doing what it was designed to do. Hey BB this is why you are called a beleiver because you beleive in stupid shit like this.
This is what the tax was designed to do so get used to it you idiot.
00
9 July: Bloomberg: Matthew Carr:Camco Appoints Marren as CFO After Shares Drop 76%
Camco International Ltd. (CAO), a London- based developer of clean-energy and carbon-offset projects, appointed Jonathan Marren as chief financial officer and board member starting today, after the company’s shares dropped 76 percent in the past year…
“Carbon is a difficult asset class,” Marren said in a phone interview. “Investors need to spend a lot of time to understand it.” …
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-07-09/camco-appoints-marren-as-cfo-after-shares-drop-76-percent
15 July: Times of India: Nitin Sethi: BASIC nations call for rollback of EU carbon tax on aviation
The meeting of BASIC countries – Brazil, South Africa, China and India — in Pretoria, South Africa, made a strong statement against EU’s carbon tax on aviation at the end of two-day talks.
A joint statement of the four countries stated, “Ministers were deeply concerned at the continued unilateral action by the EU to include international aviation in the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU-ETS), including intentions for similar unilateral measures, and called for immediate withdrawal of such actions that violate the multilateral rules-based system and adversely affect trust among parties.”…
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/global-warming/BASIC-nations-call-for-rollback-of-EU-carbon-tax-on-aviation/articleshow/14919330.cms
00
and the Green CAGW pawns are taking us all down with this scam!
13 July: Bloomberg: Matthew Carr: Carbon Top Commodity Stokes Suspicion EU Ideas Leaked
The most ambitious market-based effort to control carbon emissions is being undermined by a glut of permits, amid allegations that European Union ideas to tackle the surplus are being leaked prematurely…
Details of the plans, contained in a draft report being drawn up by EU officials, may be ending up in the hands of everyone from national governments and non-government organizations to researchers and traders, said Brett Stacey, the founder of CarbonDesk Group Plc (CO2P), a renewable-energy financier in London that suspended its emissions-options brokerage in January. That’s sapping trust in the seven-year-old cap-and- trade market, the world’s biggest, he said.
“This information shouldn’t be leaked to certain places in the market because fortunes can be lost, and unless this is realized it could kill the very market they’re trying to protect,” Stacey said in an interview. “Investors will end up leaving the market, as they have no confidence of having the same information.”…
The EU market will probably still be oversupplied by the equivalent of a year’s total allowances by 2020, Barclays Plc (BARC) forecast on June 22….
Traders who pay the closest attention to regulatory developments may “know a little bit more than others,” she said. “We would very much welcome a discussion around the definition of insider information in the context of the supervision of carbon markets.”…
Options Traded
Trading in “calls” linked to the June emissions future increased to 2.1 million tons in the week ended June 15, from 500,000 tons the week before, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Calls are options that give the buyer the right to purchase at a certain price.
The options, which expired June 20, surged to 61 cents a ton on June 19 from 18 cents June 8, according to ICE data. Options contracts are cleared on ICE after being brokered over the counter at prices that may not be disclosed.
Claire Miller, a London-based spokeswoman for ICE, declined to comment on whether the exchange was investigating the trades. Chris Hamilton, a spokesman for the U.K.’s Financial Services Authority, said the FSA never confirms or denies whether an investigation is taking place…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-13/carbon-top-commodity-stokes-suspicion-eu-ideas-leaked.html
00
Regardless of what happened in the past here is what is happening now
http://iceagenow.info/2012/07/britain-wettest-july-temps-record-lows/
http://iceagenow.info/2012/07/arctic-supply-ships-stuck-%e2%80%9cbrutal%e2%80%9d-bering-sea-ice/
00
[…] Charles Sturt’s time: so hot that thermometers exploded. Was Australia’s hottest day in 1828? 5… […]
00
This is a good (short) read i like hios description of the GHE ie CO2 does not trap heat etc
http://www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com/pdf/AGW_presentation_ILMCD.pdf
00
Bit off topic, but discrepancies are very easily seen when it comes to the BOM. They now have a data record showing max and min temp’s for many places in Australia from 1910 to 2010.
Anyway, the Brisbane airport is said to be 27’39” south. I have always been interested in Brisbane’s position and this struck me as odd. Looking at the BOM radar which also gives the position of places I see that 27’39” south is Logan City which is many many kilometres south of the Brisbane ap.
I know BOM says you should not take any distance reference, etc, from the radar but to be so far out seems rather annoying.
00
From Wikipedia:
“Said Hanrahan” is a poem written by the Australian bush poet John O’Brien, the pen name of Roman Catholic priest, Patrick Joseph Hartigan.[1] The poem was first published in 1921 in the anthology Around the Boree Log and Other Verses.[1]
The poem describes the recurrent natural cycle of droughts, floods and bushfires in rural Australia as seen by “Hanrahan”, a pessimistic man of Irish descent. “‘We’ll all be rooned’, said Hanrahan”—an adage extracted from the poem—has entered the Australian English lexicon.
The poem starts with the area in the grip of a drought, the worst since “the banks went bad”; a reference to the drought and banking crisis of the early 1890s.
“If we don’t get three inches, man,
Or four to break this drought,
We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“Before the year is out.”
In time, the rains “drummed a homely tune” on “iron roof and window-pane”. The problem then changed from drought to flood. “Banker” refers to a watercourse filled from bank to bank, unusual in Australia where may watercourses are ephemeral or only intermittently full.
And every creek a banker ran,
And dams filled overtop;
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“If this rain doesn’t stop.”
“In God’s good time” the rain stopped and spring arrived with “harvest-hopes immense”. The “knee-deep” grass, while good for feeding livestock, brought to mind the risk of bushfire.
“There’ll be bush-fires for sure, me man,
There will, without a doubt;
We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“Before the year is out.”
We’ll all be “rooned” seems to be the catch cry of the catastrophic global warming alarmists.
00
I’m probably throwing up a red herring, but were these brewers’ thermometers filled with alcohol or mercury? Could that make any difference to certain of the readings?
00
Makes no difference at all other than the operating range of the device. The scale on the thermometer was/is usually calibrated by placing the bulb in a liquid at a know (reference) temperature and marking (e.g.) the glass when the device has settled. Another bath at a substantially-different temperature is used to set a mark for that reference temperature. The thermometer’s scale is then “drawn” by interpolation and some extrapolation. There is an underlying assumption that e.g. the glass tube is a perfect cylinder along the length of the scale.
Back in high school, I wanted to make my own thermometer in chemistry class. All it would have taken was some small-diameter glass tubing, a bunsen burner and some liquid to fill the thermometer. And a dollop of nous. Never got around to it because of trouble-makers in the class. 🙁
00
Bernd, it could make a difference, because of differing amounts of radiation absorbed by the thermometer.
Sturt took readings both in shade and in direct sunlight. As you have noted, those readings would have been affected by wind and other factors.
Any reading that Sturt took from a thermometer in a tent that was in direct sunlight could still be higher than any true shade reading, because of radiation absorption and reemission from the tent material, but if the tent had been in place overnight and had kept the ground under it cooler than it may otherwise have been then any reading taken at the tent floor would give a lower reading than external shade temperature.
Even night temperature measurements would be affected slightly by differences in radiation absorption in two different thermometer liquids, because of the very low sky temperature, which makes roofs slightly cooler than surrounding air.
Temperature measurements in houses and other buildings under sunshine can be affected by radiation from hot roofs. That’s an easy one to check – lay two identical thermometers on the floor, one uncovered and the other with its bulb covered by aluminium foil to reflect at least some of the radiation away.
Then there’s the problem of where to make temperature measurements. The urban heat island effect has, quite rightly, received much comment in recent years.
People generally assume, without thinking, that measuring “the temperature” is a simple thing, but it’s one of the most difficult of all measurements to make. The useful accuracy of such measurements and their consistency over many centuries or even decades are nowhere near enough for reliable assessment of the temperature changes that career parasites and other alarmists claim.
Anthony Watts and Joe D’Aleo did good work on bias in temperature records due to poor siting of thermometers and careful selection of data to corrupt the record for fraudulent purposes.
00
Hi Laurie
Your comment about ground temp in relation to whether the floor of the tent was in place before or after sunrise was interesting.
Just goes to illustrate how careful scientists must be when recording values.
On the other hand after a couple of hours at 110deg F it probably wouldn’t matter when the tent was pitched, it would be bloody hot.
tents may also have used flys or secondary cover which would change the experience as well.
KK
00
Off topic but… Have you seen this?
http://www.niwa.co.nz/news/scientists-discover-abrupt-increase-in-co2-uptake-by-the-land-biosphere
and http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2010GB004024.shtml
An elegant way of trying to worm out of this mess?
00
Sorry, haven’t been here for couple of days. Should have scrawled down…
00
I guess this temperature record argument takes us back to what the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO are doing to temperature records through ‘homogenisation’.
Anyway, the Carbon Tax continues to take it’s squeeze. Even if we were to believe that our current temperatures are abnormaly high, a Carbon tax won’t do anything to solve it other than crush Businesses.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/dumped-with-big-carbon-tax-hike/story-e6freuy9-1226426663448
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The references by aborigines to Sturt about how extremely high floods seemed to come from nowhere have, of course, a rational explanation. That is, the more frequent high rainfall in QLD during the monsoon season. The inference the floods may have been higher than hitherto recorded may be a warning for us all.
Oxley, who first surveyed the Brisbane River in 1824, was astonished to be told of floods that left debris higher than any flood recorded after settlement including the 1893 double flood. Clearly, such flooding was well before CO2 increase could have possibly contributed in any way to these floods.
BTW, the observation that Sturt found salty water used to be taught in primary schools. That is, until the removal of studying Australian explorers was overwhelmed by bizarre ways of teaching what used to be called Social Studies including history.
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Bernd Felsche @ 10,
Yes, I agree. The position of most country thermometers was on verandahs which were usually flyscreened, very well shaded and in some very far-west situations, screened in spinifex, enclosed in wire netting on both sides with a trough of water at the base that provided an auto-evaporative air conditioner. This made for relatively low thermometer readings on the hottest of days.
In 1957 I was pumping water for cattle from a bore [no wind for the windmills] in Sturt’s Stony Desert and the temperature in the shade was 122f [50c]. I remember it well because it is the only time I have ever seen a bird drop dead in mid-flight.
It is certainly no hotter today than it was in those days.
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Hi Drongo
Have you any recollection of night time temperatures?
Part of the article above mentions day time temperatures of 131 deg F and higher but was wondering what the corresponding night temp might be.
A figure of 24 deg F (minus 4.4 deg C) was mentioned for another season.
What sort of effect does flooding have on the temperatures in these areas that can go from dry for years and then flood very rapidly.
here in Newcastle , when it was hot along time ago, the days would be 104 and the night sdidn’t feel much better.
We had the moderating effect of high humidity whereas the desert has low humidity.
Any comments?
KK 🙂
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KK,
It was almost always very low humidity on this place called Planet Downs and the nights were eventually quite pleasant [probably around 80-85f, 28-30c] as the land lost heat by bedtime [9-10 pm]. In summer we only moved cattle at night because of the heat.
Winter night time temps would be in the range you mentioned [24f].
With flooding, the rainfall often occurs well away from where you experience the flood so it often doesn’t change the actual weather much. A flood can spring upon you unexpectedly as a wall of unheralded water. Of course when the floodwaters recede into the channels and the fantastic organic growth bursts forth which fattens the bone racks in three or four weeks and produces watermelons in the sandhills, the resulting oasis is much more pleasant weather wise, albeit fly-ridden and somewhat humid.
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Hi Spangled Drongo
Thanks for that.
We hear about deserts being very hot in the daytime and very cold at night but I guess from what you are saying that the summer weather was mild at night and winters were freezing at night.
This precludes my image of deserts being blazing hot by day and then freezing cold after sundown. It would probably be hard to lose all of the heat stored in the top 4 foot of soil too quick.
The comments in the article mentioned screws being drawn – this must be a result of equipment made in coastal areas with an initial moisture content of 5 plus % and then adjusting to the zero humidity.
No wonder screws came loose with all that timber shrinkage.
KK
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Its been quite a while since Perth had its hottest day on record. I rather hope we don’t beat our 45 degree record. And I can’t even imagine a temperature of 50+ degrees.
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Perth 117 dgrees F or 47.2 Degree C in 1879.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/82146423?zoomLevel=6
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I was at Birdsville on Christmas day in the early 1970’s when the temp was 50 degrees C
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Like John I can’t imagine what 50+ would be like either. I spent most of a 42 day up to my neck in the Lachlan in the 70’s. Even the BOM show the hottest in that area was 47.8 back in 1882(Forbes).
Back when the weather was more extreme in Birdsville in 1889 they scored 126 F or 52.2 C.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/82213804?zoomLevel=6
This could have been the same day Cloncurry scored 53.1 C. Little wonder Sturt n Co dug an underground bunker to survive the worst of it back when the weather was even more extreme again.
————————————————————————————–
[Remember official temperature readings are taken in the shade. It can easily be 50C plus on a hot day in the sun on a hot surface of rocks, desert sand, red dirt or even beach sand. How many of us in Australia have burnt our feet at the beach or on the bitumen or concrete? – *Ed]
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Ooops the Warwick Examiner story says December so it was not the same day. It was not even the same summer!
Here is another 126 from out there and if you ever wondered about dingos taking a baby notice what the police assumed then.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/5342285?zoomLevel=6
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Thanks “Ed” “Remember” both newspaper stories clearly use the wording “IN THE SHADE”!
Also neither mention placing the thermometer on the ground.
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Don’t worry JB – it was only 10 to 19 C today – you have to wait until summer – CAGW will get you in Perth!
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JB,
It’s decidedly young man’s country. And when you see how many of the old homesteads are in ruins and only visited once a year to be mustered by helicopter even the young people of today are very often only part time.
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Great job Lance.
I wonder why Ross James hasn’t commented on this? Or Maxine? Seems they don’t like history.
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We may have stumbled upon a way to get rid of them. Now how can we get history into an aerosol can?
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Well researched, Lance Pidgeon. For a convenient list of links to old newspaper articles pinpointing Australia’s climate change since 1850, it’s worth having a look at http://www.waclimate.net/climate-history.html
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Speaking of explorers, does any one know what happened to this study:
Captain Cook’s logs to predict weather. It’s dated 8th Dec 2003
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2003/12/08/1004482.htm
At the end of the article they state, “One catch is, the team has yet to secure funding to finish the job”.
The only follow-up I can seem to find are a few reports dated ~Oct 2009 like this one:
Captain Cook’s logs to unlock climate secrets.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/captain-cooks-logs-to-unlock-climate-secrets/story-e6frg8gf-1225783573927
Does any one know if this is still in ‘limbo’ or has it been completed and I just can’t find it?
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Thanks for all the anecdotal evidence and invaluable insights from all you arm chair scientists, it really shines a light on this discourse of drivel! You are all indeed, the Army Of Light!! I can’t recall ever reading such a load of codswallop!!
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Some long time ago I read all the early explorers log books I could find, perhaps they were all wrong and should not have believed their lying eyes. Please do some research before posting drivel. That said, I am impressed by your lack of intelligence and manners.
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Thanks Wayne. The Anecdotal word seems to be the only near valid criticism. I say the claim that the climate was EVER stable and lacked extreme weather is not supported by history at all. So it is anecdotal versus foundationless. As you know the amount of data out there in the form of these log books is very large but requires a lot of time and effort to gather. Today’s “cushy gov’t job parasites” will not do the work and if they did they would be kicked off the gravy train. So it is up to volunteers on BOTH sides of the argument to seek the truth of the matter. Rather than accept the anecdotal put down I think a few more tongue in cheek mockeries of the current hype are needed.
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Thanks for that John,
Really do appreciate your input.
The term armchair scientists is possibly not appropriate to describe the people posting here as you would discover if you went back over the conversation.
Many are fully involved in very practical and REAL ways with science and its engineering applications and can smell a decomposing IPCC carcase a mile off
But then.
You have to be a scientist to understand, so maybe going back over the past conversation here would be a waste of your valuable time.
KK
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Ouch!!
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Well maybe this particular thread was not one of the best.
Still, there are often nuggets of brilliant comment and overall people do learn new things and revise their understanding of CAGW.
🙂
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Thanks Siliggy, your comments show that you are probably quite a reasonable person. And even KinkyKeith, despite our obvious differences of opinion, I don’t hold a grudge. Sounds to me like we come from a similar background, ie. Redhead, Dudley area of Newastle. We may not agree, but that’s OK.
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Posted a link to this in a discussion here: http://judithcurry.com/2013/01/06/improving-weather-forecasts-for-the-developing-world/#comment-284171
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Interesting to see that Sturt’s method of measuring the temperature in the fork of a tree has been adopted as a global standard. NOT! Believe it or not but scientists are VERY careful in ensuring continuity of high quality records. They also spend time investigating whether the changes we see are natural or man-made. Lastly they also spend time sharing their research to make sure its up to scratch and if it is then it is published. Guess what? The results say that man-made global warming is happening and people need to take steps to address emmissions. You will see that governments are moving in this direction based on this excellent scientific advice. You can choose to deny but you will be left behind as the world has moved on already and wouldn’t you rather generate power locally rather than buy it from overseas?
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Pete: Explorers like Sturt were sent to all places around the world and were instructed on taking scientific measurements. He was aware that it was important the measurement should be taken in the shade out of direct sunlight but in a position where any breeze could still access the thermometer, the very same conditions the Stevenson Screens attempt to replicate and which have of course been adopted all around the world!
You say Climate Scientists “spend time sharing their research to make sure its up to scratch and if it is then it is published.” yet so many climate scientists have gone to great lengths to hide their data and methods from scrutiny.
You would have to have been living under a rock to be unaware of Michael Mann’s attempts to avoid having his work checked and when the infamous hockey stick published in 1999 which featured in the IPCC assessment report in 2001 apparently unchecked, was eventually interdependently checked in 2005 it was found to be severely flawed. Specifically the independent report found:
“It is important to note the isolation of the paleoclimate community; even though they rely heavily on statistical methods they do not seem to be interacting with the statistical community. Additionally, we judge that the sharing of research materials, data and results was haphazardly and grudgingly done. In this case we judge that there was too much reliance on peer review, which was not necessarily independent. Moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that this community can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility. Overall, our committee believes that Dr. Mann’s assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade of the millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year of the millennium cannot be supported by his analysis.”
But this was not an isolated incident. Phil Jones head of the Hadley CRU at the East Anglia University is famous for his attempts to avoid FOI requests by telling all his Climate Science buddies to delete emails and of course then told the world the original raw temperature data needed to check the ‘adjustments’ they had been making was no longer available because it had been deleted thus requiring the UK Met to take on a 3 year reconstruction programme which we have heard nothing more about.
But climate scientists hiding data doesn’t stop there, NIWA, New Zealand’s equivelent of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has been through a long drawn out legal battle in an attempt to avoid showing the world how they made adjustments to raw temperature data which made zero or little warming trend over a century suddenly become a warming trend of almost 1.0C per century, higher than any other agency in the world was claiming. They have used every legal trick in the book to successfully avoid disclosing their ‘scientific’ work.
NIWA even engaged our own BOM to testify in court on their behalf that they had done the right thing with regards temperature adjustments, but the best BOM was prepared to do was provide a vague letter of endorsement about NIWA’s possible methods, making it clear that it hadn’t actually audited any of the temperature records.
But our own BOM has a history of avoiding disclosing their own work and has still not satisfied FOI requests to show calculations of temperature adjustments which change original raw temperature data in Australia to increase the century warming trend by about 40% across the board claiming commercial sensitivity.
So your claim of scientific openness by the climate science community is left floundering.
Then you write “The results say that man-made global warming is happening and people need to take steps to address emmissions. You will see that governments are moving in this direction based on this excellent scientific advice. “
The UK Met office snuck this news out on Christmas Eve, and we are yet to even see the vitally important subject reported in Australia. This is important because climate alarmists, the IPCC and the Government have been telling us for years that the Earth is warming dangerously, that it is largely due to human greenhouse gas emissions, and the climate is incredibly delicate and sensitive to increased atmospheric CO2. Meanwhile so called climate ‘skeptics’ like myself have been ridiculed for pointing out that human greenhouse gas emissions and global average temperatures are poorly correlated; the climate has been recovering and warming naturally since the Little Ice Age with cycles more readily identified with solar cycles, additional CO2 in the atmosphere may have some warming effect, but there is no scientific proof to support the climate models which have been falsified by empirical evidence which shows there has been no warming since 1998 while CO2 emissions have accelerated exponentially.
Sceptics have been called climate deniers and have been accused of not accepting the science when in fact it is the climate alarmists, the policy makers and all those on the climate change band wagon who have refused to keep an open mind. Here is what the Editor of the UK Daily Mail had to say about it on 10/01/13, but don’t expect any major coverage in our left wing media in Australia any time soon. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2259934/DAILY-MAIL-COMMENT-Global-warming-inconvenient-truth.html
“To put it mildly, it is a matter of enormous public interest that the Met Office has revised its predictions of global warming, whispering that new data suggest there will be none for the next five years. After all, the projection implies that by 2017, despite a colossal increase in carbon emissions, there will have been no rise in the planet’s surface temperature for almost two decades. Why, then, did the Met Office choose to sneak out this intriguing information on Christmas Eve, knowing there would be no newspapers the next day?
Isn’t the inescapable suspicion that our national forecaster was anxious not to shake confidence in its Messianic belief that we are destroying our own planet? This paper keeps an open mind on climate change – and accepts that the Met Office’s revised prediction doesn’t prove the scientific establishment and its staunch disciples at the BBC wrong. At the very least, however, it adds to the debate, lending support to those who argue that the threat to the environment has been greatly exaggerated.
Meanwhile, ministers stake gargantuan sums of public money on their faith in the alarmists, scarring the landscape with wind farms, forcing up energy bills and threatening to shut down almost all our fossil fuel-dependent economy. This is why it is so vital that every scrap of scientific data is fully debated and dispassionately analysed.
The Met Office’s clumsy attempt to hush up an inconvenient truth was a crime against science and the public.”
So much for your blind faith in the climate science gods Pete!
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Thats weird, i got Petes email but could not find his name in the list but i can see you Jaymez. The only point i would ask Pete to expand would be this.
As in what results?
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Hi again……love your work. It would be worth your while looking carefully at the following links where you would have to be pretty stubborn not to agree with the statements. Still, perhaps you’re sitting enjoying a cancer free smoke in an asbestos teepee while you write a missive to government to get CFS’s reintroduced as they’re more efficient at refrigeration. Science works well because it is unbiased. Science will never be 100% certain but the body of evidence is large.
See http://www.climatechange.gov.au/climate-change/understanding-climate-change/~/media/climate-change/prof-plimer-101-questions-response-pdf.pdf
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don’t get me started about Plimer’s book. The thing is that addressing Plimer’s poorly structured and confused arguments does nothing to enhance the AGW side of the debate as his book fails as a tool for the sceptics. The book is an embarrassment to anyone who considers themselves a sceptic.
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Plimer’s book is not the issue. The 101 answers on the link are actually answers to claims from all sceptics……..not just Plimer. Also, at the start of the article there are 5 other links providing great data.
Here is the link again;
http://www.climatechange.gov.au/climate-change/understanding-climate-change/~/media/climate-change/prof-plimer-101-questions-response-pdf.pdf
Be very careful with reading information that does not have scientific basis. For instance; Jamez talks about Sturt’s thermometer and suggests it is bona-fide. Unfortunately it may be in the shade but it is likely receiving radiational heat from the ground and to an extent the tree itself(Imagine the heat you feel at night from a brick wall that was heated during the day….same thing happens in the day). What about his claims that BoM avoided disclosing work and did not comply with FOI requests. Well………the BoM ACORN-SAT and the NZ data HAVE been proven to be correct. The following article is good but even better are the links within. http://2risk.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/acorn-sat-is-aok/
I’ve enjoyed this email discussion and I do hope you take the time to look into the information.
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A survey on Do you believe our weather is being impacted by man-made climate change?
http://wangarattachronicle.com.au/
Here’s your chance to vote on an issue….
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A lot of clever people in Wangaratta. Was that one on of Monckton’s Tour stops, or were they already leading the charge back to sanity ?
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Strewth. My apologies. I never realised Wangaratta is in Aus., just about 70 kliks down the highway from Albury-Wodonga. Good on yet Wangaratta.
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The Survey has finished at 600 or so votes and 95 percent did not believe in manmade climate change…
It must have been the women that caused it….
Its been taken off. I wonder if they will publish the results in the local paper???
This site needs some informed lobbying http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/simple-points-about-climate-change/story-fnjwvztl-1226750488131
They are doing their darnedest to push the subject…
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Followed the link. Read it. Noted the source at the bottom of the page (SkS). Discarded it from memory.
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The two most important take home points are:
3, Remind me how it works
Ok so when can i buy some to put in my attic, i cant wait to turn on my heater once at the start of winter for about an hour or two then turn it off to warm my house and when summer begins i can open all my windows to let that very same heat out. Also can you imagine a thermos flask, i can make a hot milo today and in ten years time it will still be hot enough to drink because of all that trapped heat………….seriously just how stupid are the people that believe this tripe
10, Can i do something
And there you have you need to reduce *YOUR* standard of living, the CCCrowd’s motto “You must use less so i can use more”
Well 3 take home points actually dont accept anything related to SKS as pointed out by Heywood
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I was writing about the News paper site I listed, not this blog..
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“The Survey has finished at 600 or so votes and 95 percent did not believe in manmade climate change…
It must have been the women that caused it….”
A small community newspaper poll comes out diametrically opposite to the IPCC’s much vaunted, assertion of ‘95% certainty’.
Are the academics in trouble ? Let the patronising begin – of which John Oh’s News piece linked above is a more subtle & insidious example.
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Joe V.
A small community newspaper poll comes out diametrically opposite to the IPCC’s much vaunted, assertion of ’95% certainty’.
A small town of about 15,000, + 15000 outlying, but of rural character has a lot to loose if you take into consideration land rights are being targeted using environmental issues.
What are you actually trying to say?
These areas are being targeted because they appear to be simple to attack, with many not knowing their rights. Agenda 21, and ICLEI is the instrumentality that is doing this…insidiously.
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Nope were still being screwed by the LABOR party who infiltrated the local council, State government Read (local government mp) and now the Federal seat with their “we are independent ” policy lie, while being supported by the National party. We have been sabotaged but are fighting back…
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Did your local council use Poll Daddy for their elections by any chance ? I’ve rarely seen such an overwhelming consensus (apart from the 97% of Academics one of course).
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No eye deer.
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PS No Mockton tour…here. Why? Easy we know and are aware!
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